When his eyesight returned to him, it didn’t help very much. The forest around him was so dense that hardly any of the early morning sunlight made it through the treetops. But he could hear now, too, so he held his breath and listened.
Rustling leaves. All around him. And a low, faint rumble beneath his feet. The ground was trembling. It could have been the Gargoyle’s doing, but he was fairly sure that she was still in the sky.
‘Straight ahead of you,’ came Reza’s warning, and Dunstan braced himself just in time to see a howling blur leap out from behind the forward treeline.
Unable to stand, and with only half of his body responding to him, Dunstan knew he would have to make some hearty sacrifices to his krypton transfiguration if he were to have any hope of winning. And indeed, when the salivating human monster landed on him and started biting into his face and digging into his chest, Dunstan converted huge chunks of his flesh into superheated gas. Every point of physical contact between the two of them burned. Even Dunstan’s own face melted into a bloody, smoldering mess.
With his one good hand, he found the mindless person’s head, which immediately bit his fingers off with metal teeth.
Dunstan sacrificed the whole hand and shoved through their skull. Brain matter blew out the back of their head, and the flailing body on top of him went suddenly limp. He shoved the corpse off and tried to stand again, finding a bit more success now that most of his legs had regenerated. He’d given up much of his torso, arms, and head, but the trade was worth it so long as he was still conscious.
‘Can you still see me?’ Reza asked.
‘Yeah.’ To his eyes, she was still perfectly visible in the low light, despite being a pitch black wraith.
‘Follow me, then.’
She flew off, staying low and with a slack enough pace for Dunstan’s shambling footsteps to keep up.
No more than twenty steps later, burning bright light came piercing through the darkness, but Dunstan was far from relieved when he saw that the source was another broken servant who’d set himself ablaze. The forest was already catching, Dunstan saw--orange flames licking bark and climbing into the canopy or leaping across the undergrowth.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Metal teeth? No reaperless servants gone mad, then.
ReplyDeleteNah that's definitely a mindless servant with metal transfiguration.
ReplyDeletestarted biting into [his] face and digging into his chest...
ReplyDeleteAs best I could tell from Stoker, zombies retain their old skills and power, with maybe a bit less control. A simple trick like metallic teeth would be easy to do without most of their mind.
ReplyDelete{landed on him and started biting >into face<}
ReplyDeleteInto his face
Maybe should have elaborated back there... no problem about the metal teeth, but you're not likely to wear them in polite company. These zombie-servants seem to have been placed there very much on purpose to gnaw a little on the incoming Vanguardians. Oh well, I suppose they might be mind- and reaperless, but I don't think their presence is a coincidence.
ReplyDeleteI thought they only lasted a little while after their reapers died, though? Unless they were held prisoner, and then their reapers executed just in time to set them zombielike
ReplyDeleteWhat happens is that they last the half-hour or so it takes for the regeneration buff to wear off. I think that the zombies were casualties from the attack on the plane, which was after all using soul-empowered missiles. But that's just my guess, and it might be something completely different. We'll find out in a few pages.
ReplyDeletehttp://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2013/11/page-365.html
ReplyDelete‘Be extremely careful. It will die on its own within the next hour, but if we just let it go, then it will seek out people to kill.’
So what Steve said, basically. But Dunstan would probably have commented on it if the zombies were his former comrades.
Actually, metal teeth are a fairly common, even in real life!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I was wrong about what she meant by "fucked up souls". It was zombies.
ReplyDeleteI thought the whole deal about zombies was that they had NO souls, though?
They're servants whose reapers have been killed.
ReplyDeleteYes, I know what zombies are here. I also seems to recall that they attack people because they recognize that they lost their soul, can't live without one, and are (futilely) trying to get a replacement.
ReplyDeleteI would think that would also mean they can't hurt reapers?
Couldn't they have fallen from the plane too?
ReplyDeleteEh. People will usually take less note of someone's identity than of the fact that that person is trying to eat their face, especially if the person is also moving too fast to get a good look at. Besides, Dunstan might not have known the people on the plane with him.
ReplyDeleteUnless whoever killed their reapers set this whole scenario up as a trap, and can maybe help them attack Reza... not sure how that would work, just that this seems like a trap that someone has put thought and effort into. Maybe trapper is waiting until Dunstan is taken out by the zombies so that he/she/they can get Reza with impunity?
ReplyDeleteHonestly, Dunstan isn't terribly dangerous, certainly not to someone with the power and resources to launch an attack on Sanko and expect it to even partially work.
ReplyDeleteFrost did you get abducted by ninjas or something? :p but seriously, you Allright? Or just busy.
ReplyDeleteSo I just binged the entirety of TZK, and I just wanted to say this is some of the best stuff I've ever read. Period. And I've read a lot. Thank you for making this awesome thing free for everyone.
ReplyDeleteAm I gonna have to send a bad enough dude. Because I will if I have to.
ReplyDelete'Zombie' is simply just a body brought back to life through unorthodox means.
ReplyDeleteHuh?
ReplyDeleteIts from an old(REALLY OLD) nes game.
ReplyDelete